UCLA’s School of Nursing has partnered with the Union Rescue Mission to provide tuberculosis testing for those on Skid Row. The UCLA Newsroom gives us an inside look at the clinic within the Union Rescue Mission and the work they are doing to combat a recent outbreak of TB in the area.

“The first shoot we had scheduled was in Gladys Park a few blocks away from the clinic. They do an outreach when the park opens up and they offer testing,” said Sebastian Hernandez, Manager of the Broadcast Studio, who was involved in the filming of this documentary.

UCLA Today reports, “Public health officials have identified 78 TB cases that have occurred on skid row in 2007-2012. Of those cases, 60 people were homeless. And of those 60, 11 died of TB. All of these cases could have been treated with medication, the county reported.”

The School of Nursing offers testing to all who are willing, whether or not they are staying at the mission.

“It’s a different reality down there [in Gladys Park]. It’s a shady part of town, but you recognize that they are just people trying to cope. It was different inside the mission. People are more at ease. It feels like a safer place for the people living there.”

Hernandez says that the rescue mission seems like it can be a launching pad to get people off the streets and presents them with many different health care services.

“It’s valuable to recognize that there are a bunch of different steps involved in addressing homelessness and all the issues surrounding it. They seem to do a good job of giving the residents the comprehensive care that they need,” says Hernandez. “We need to be aware that a process is necessary and no ‘one free lunch program’ is going to solve the issue. People can mention how homelessness is sad but I hope that seeing this can inspire people to really get beyond guilt and actively support broad policies that address homelessness.”

In the 2012 presidential campaign, both candidates repeatedly promised one thing: to deal with the economic and unemployment issues that plague the nation. Many voters were skeptical that the opposing candidate’s plan could really help Americans find work, which led to very heated debates on the matter.

Take a look inside the rhetoric of the 2012 campaign as UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy’s Dean, Henry E. Brady, joins UC Davis economist Hilary Hoynes and UC Berkeley sociologist Cybelle Fox to explore the way the candidates discussed income inequality.

Richard “Dick” Beahrs, a member of the Center on Civility & Democratic Engagement Advisory Board at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, moderates the panel as they evaluate the way the debate strategies that each candidate used have affected bipartisanship, civility, and public discussion.

In the first short episode, “Lights in the Darkness,”John Bowers of UC Santa Barbara’s Institute for Energy Efficiency describes the impact that lack of reliable lighting has on people’s lives. But he also shines some hope on the situation by showing how the use of highly efficient white LED, discovered by Shuji Nakamura, is proving to be a feasible and economical solution.

We also rose to the top at the Telly Awards, where The Skinny on Obesity: Sickeningly Sweet, produced by Rich Wargo and Jennifer Ford for the YouTube original channel UCTV Prime, won the Silver Telly for Internet/Online Programs in the Health and Wellness category.

The Aurora Awards are an annual independent film and video competition that honors excellence in commercials, cable programming, documentaries, industrial, instructional and corporate videos.

The Telly Awards honor the very best film and video productions, groundbreaking online video content, and outstanding local, regional and cable TV commercials and programs.

UCTV Prime’s series “Lifting the Blanket: The Pursuit of a Climate Change Solution” has been following the remarkable journey of Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s Veerabhadran Ramanathan, whose scientific curiosity took him from a refrigeration plant in his native country of India to becoming a globally recognized leader in climate change research.

Episodes one and two tracked the progress of his groundbreaking research that identified the significant contribution of CFCs and black carbon soot to global warming. In episode 3, “Can the World Breathe Easy?,” Ramanathan returns to India with an international collaboration to demonstrate that improving cooking methods in the developing world could slow global warming and improve public health along the way.

Watch episode 3 now, or catch up with Ramanthan’s quest to find human-scale solutions to climate change at the series website. Stay tuned February 12 for the fourth and final installment, “Scientific Authority Meets Moral Authority.”